Author: Ventsel, Aimar

Source: Sibirica, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2009 , pp. 1-23(23)

Abstract:

This article is about the Sakha music business and the people involved in it. It discusses different strategies of making music and shows that different music genres have their own setting of social relations. Due to the specific economic and social situation, social relations in the music business are often informal. The classic theory of the cultural industry states that producing music is a calculated market economy-oriented activity. This article questions such an approach and shows that social and cultural ideas are present in the music-making process. The Sakha music business cannot be seen as only a profit-oriented sphere. Whereas producers and musicians are interested in formal, contract-based relations in purely economic cases, the informality maintains its importance. Ideas of solidarity and mutual support are linked to the perception of being in one music community, which uses different elements of Sakha culture in their music. As is demonstrated in the article, incorporation of Sakha motives is not only a marketing strategy but also a way for musicians and producers to act as carriers of the Sakha culture whose mission is to develop it.

Keywords: CULTURAL INDUSTRY; HERITAGE; MUSIC; POPULAR CULTURE; SAKHA; SOCIAL RELATIONS

DOI: 10.3167/sib.2009.080102

User name

 

Password

 

 

Remember me

 

 

 

• forgotten your password?
• Sign in via Athens